Cosplay at the Capitol Turnaround

On December 17th,  I attended the D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots’ meetup at the Capitol Turnaround in South East D.C..   The Capitol Turnaround, was formally a streetcar  barn  for repairing and rerouting streetcars across the nation’s capital. This  historic car barn has since been renovated into a modern event center while maintaining the historic character of the building.  

For this event I used:

• Canon 80D

• 1 Speed light

• Trigger

• Light stand

• 18-200mm lens

• 1x2 Strip box

• Assistant

The Venue:

This venue has a lot of potential, but I feel it is better suited to lifestyle or fashion photography than traditional cosplay photos. I feel the best photos I got from this meetup were ones where the cosplay leaned more towards fashion or modern clothes.  Now don’t get me wrong, you can photograph any cosplay almost anywhere as long as you are creative or eliminate the background. However,  for venues like this I like to include the venue, as I feel that is the point of going to special venues to shoot.  If I wanted to eliminate background or just have a blank background I would shoot in a studio.  Finally, due to it being December the venue was decorated for the holidays, which I took advantage of for a few of the mini sessions. 

Camera Settings:

This event was an indoor event, which normally requires a higher ISO. The venue seemed reasonably lit for general use, however, I felt it was not well lit for photography.  I would say it was actually a bit dim, unless you were by the large bank of windows, which had a ton of natural light streaming through them.  For this event I started with an ISO of 100, determined that was not optimal, so went up to ISO 400 for a majority of the image.  I also shot a few images at ISO 800,  inside the auditorium space, because it was just too dim for my tiny speed light inside a softbox.  Again due to the overall ambient light within the building and using a tiny speed light inside a softbox, I ended up using an aperture of F5.6 as compared to my normal F8.   My shutter speed ranged from 1/15s in the darkest areas to 1/320s when shooting by the bank of windows. My most common shutter speed was 1/160s.  My focal lengths ranged from 18mm to 60mm with 18mm being the most common.

The Photos:

As I said earlier, the venue was decorated for the holidays,  so I took advantage of that for this lovely Gatsby inspired photo of Crazy Jae Cosplay.  The sunlight coming in through the frosted windows adds some overall warmth to the image, while creating a nice back light.  I then placed the softbox to my right to light the model and the rest of the scene. Now I did not do a lot in post production of these images, as I wanted to get them out to the cosplayers before Christmas.  What I did do was balance the image, bring up the exposure slightly, add a bit of clarity.  Then sharpened the image and adjusted the smoothness of the image.  I then added a gradient filter to the right of the image to reduce the large shadow on the tree.  Then I cropped the images and ended with a very light vignette.  Resulting in a nice simple 1920s inspired holiday photo. 

ISO 400, Aperture F5.6, Shutter 1/320, Focal Length 18mm

I’m going to continue with the flapper theme with this second photo of Crazy Jae Cosplay, that I actually took in the bathroom.  Yes I shot this next photo in the bathroom because the bathroom was very pretty, and met the aesthetic.  This image was a bit tricky because it involves a mirror, and mirrors reflect, so angles had to be perfect.  The challenge was making sure the light was properly positioned while it and myself did not show up in the reflection in the mirror.  In this case the soft box is about 45 degrees off the sink line to my right.  I was in line with the model and crouched a little down and shot slightly up.  During post production I balanced the image, brought up the clarity, and sharpness then smoothed out the image a little using the luminosity slider.  From there I applied a preset, which faded the image  by cutting off the black on the tone curve. I felt this gave the image a nice vintage look.  I then cropped the image, got rid of an outlet, and a medium vignette to finalize the image. 

ISO 400, Aperture F5, Shutter 1/200, Focal Length 18mm

Like I said earlier, I felt the venue was great for more fashion type photos and this next photo of Egdramaqueen as Rogue from X-men Evolution fits that bill.  First off the cosplay is a bit modern punk, and if I didn’t tell you she was cosplaying you would think this photo was from a fashion shoot.  To get this photo I placed the model up on an old workbench, which is now an industrial chic table.  I then placed the light about 30 degrees off from the table edge to my left.  The light was also raised to point down at the model.  I then stood directly in line with the model and shot standing.  In post I balanced the image, and increased clarity and sharpness.  I then added a small circular gradient to the face to brighten it just a touch.  I then added a linear gradient to the right to darken the shadows a bit more.  I then cropped the image and finalized it with my standard vignette.  

ISO 400, Aperture F5.6, Shutter 1/320, Focal Length 20mm

Now this last image is of  the_engineers_cosplay in the Hannah Alexander version of Mai from Avatar.  Now this is an awesome “cape flip” photo showing movement of the costume, but I don’t feel the location or I did this cosplay justice.  I really should have shot this on a blank background of stone or darkened out the whole background completely.  (Personally, I think this cosplay would look great in an Asian Garden setting or possibly against some stone work.)  For this photo the light was up and to my right. To get the movement I had the cosplayer face away from me and on three, turn towards me like they were going into a fighting stance.  To get the movement in the cape, I had their friend toss the cape on three.  Shots like this are very coordinated efforts. Thankfully we got this image on the second try.  During post production,  I balanced the image but ran into an issue with the lights in the background looking very orange while my flash was not. To solve this issue I masked the background and part of the floor and eliminated the color cast from the background and adjusted it the best I could to match the light on the model. I also blanched the image, increased clarity and sharpness, then adjusted the luminosity to get rid of some grain. From there I cropped the image and added a slight vignette. 

ISO 400, Aperture F5.6, Shutter 1/160, Focal Length 32mm

Overall this was another great D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots meetup, and a good way to close out the year.   It might be interesting to come back to this location again, when it isn’t decorated for the holidays.  You can see all the images from the meet up here: Capitol Turn Around Gallery.